Case 15: The Case of the Egyptian Travel Agent

John Crane, an anthropologist who teaches at a small community college
in a high-income suburb of a West Coast city, had three years of fieldwork
experience in Egypt and was delighted when Professor Randall of the
Classics department asked him if he would lead a summer tour to Egypt.
These costly tours, designed and previously led by Randall, draw well-educated
and well-traveled adults from the area. The tour group seemed happy
with Crane's leadership and Crane indicated interest in conducting future
tours. The following year, however, Randall, with the aid of his wife,
resumed leading the tour, indicating that his popularity was necessary
to the tour's success.

Two years later, Crane teamed from a travel agent, an Egyptian specializing
in cultural tours of Egypt, that the tour was in trouble. The agent,
with whom Crane had had previous business dealings, attributed the tour's
difficulties to the fact that it was being switched from his firm, which
had handled it for 15 years, to another cut-rate firm, lacking Egyptian
connections and experience. According to the agent, the college provost
was attempting to take control of the tour.

Crane talked to the provost, who said he had teamed that Randall had
a standing arrangement with the travel agent, giving him 10% of every
traveler's payment, or about $6,000 a year. In addition the college
paid him for leading the tour. The provost was upset about this arrangement
and had decided to quietly terminate it.

At first Crane did not believe the story, but when he telephoned Mrs.
Randall she indicated that standard practice in the travel business
includes such payment. She also said that in Egypt, successful tour
planning requires personal long-standing relationships in each city.

Crane realizes that the Randalls operate in a business and a culture
where such kickbacks are standard practice. It occurred to him that
perhaps Randall insists upon leading the tour himself so that no one
else will become aware of these payments. When he discussed the matter
with his colleagues, no one seemed upset and, in fact, his department
chair said that publicity would hurt the college and told him to forget
the matter. (The chair had previously criticized Crane for not being
a "team player.")

Randall is now being considered for promotion to full professor and
his colleagues are being interviewed about his qualifications. Crane
teamed that two members of his own department recommended Randall and
wonders what to say if he is asked his opinion. He believes that publicity
about Randall would reach the market population of the tour and injure
the college as a whole. In addition, Crane is himself coming up for
promotion review next year and would like to enter the situation at
peace with his colleagues.

Comment

Murray L. Wax, Washington University in St. Louis:

Strangely enough, in this entire account no mention is made of the
academic qualifications of Randall, his performance as a classroom teacher,
his productivity or other contributions to the welfare of this small
community college. Surely these should be primary in a judgment about
whether or not he merits promotion. If the issue is his moral conduct,
then one would wish to know also about his behavior in these other and
easily observable aspects of campus life. Since Crane seems unprepared
to concern himself with an overall evaluation of the qualifications--scholarly
and ethical--of Randall, then his best strategy would be to avoid being
placed in a situation where he is called upon to judge. If explicitly
asked, his best tactic would be to state that Randall is in a different
discipline and that he feels unprepared either to endorse or not to
endorse him for promotion.

The marketplace for guided tours is extremely competitive in terms
of both quality and price. Tours are offered--and implicitly endorsed--by
a variety of educational and benevolent associations and institutions.
Given the plethora of consumer choice and the fact that the tours in
question are being proffered to educated and autonomous adults, there
seems no moral compulsion upon this bystander to intervene. The situation
would be far different if those recruited were students who were being
given a chance to earn academic credit (or other goodies) by purchasing
the tour. The situation would also be different if those who purchased
the tours indicated dissatisfaction or, worse yet, a sense that they
had been defrauded. But, again, no mention is made of this possibility.
Rather, it sounds as if the travelers are receiving a pleasant and educational
experience for their monies.

Since the tours are offered under the auspices of the college, its
administrators have a responsibility to see that the travelers participate
in an educational experience. Also, as the sponsoring institution, the
college would naturally wish to receive the major share of profits or
windfall from the tour. Since the provost has been alerted to the kickback
arrangement, there is no need for Crane to take further action, unless
he wishes to emerge as perennial tour leader and is willing to do so
without the additional income that Randall has been receiving. The college
itself has the alternative of allowing Randall to continue as tour leader,
but declining itself to supplement his kickback income with summer salary,
on the theory that he is already receiving sufficient compensation.

In short, my judgment is that this is a capital instance where one
should rely on the mechanisms of the market. If the tour were overpriced
for the experiences it delivers, one presumes that few sensible adults
would purchase it, or, if they chose to purchase it, the responsibility
for their folly would be primarily theirs; the situation would not call
for evaluation by an outsider. Indeed, one would like to know about
the costs and benefits of comparable tours to this "Egypt." Would the
participants in a minimally priced, cut-rate tour--without kickbacks
and "graft"--be left to stand for hours in queues at the airport and
then find themselves occupying hotel rooms that were filthy and without
amenities? This, too, can be educational, but would hardly qualify the
tour for being priced at a high fee.

Comment

Art Gallaher, University of Kentucky:

The ethical issue posed here is how to deal with one's knowledge of
the apparent ethical indiscretions of a colleague. As is often the case,
it is compounded by the lack of conventional guidelines, and by the
mixing of both personal and professional issues.

Crane's dilemma in assessing Randall's ethics, forced by the possibility
of having to render a judgment regarding his promotion, runs to three
interrelated issues: whether to be influenced by (1) Randall cutting
him out of the tour business; (2) Randall's indiscretion with the community
college as reported by the provost; or (3) Randall taking a kickback
in a cross-cultural business arrangement. Against this background, and
seeking the advice of his colleagues, the notion of institutional welfare
is invoked as a basis for ignoring the issue, for not "rocking the boat."
An added pressure on Crane is that he, too, will soon be up for promotion
and does not wish, therefore, to alienate his colleagues.

Given the statement of facts in the case, what follows is based on
the premise that Randall is not self-employed in the tour business,
but rather operates on behalf of the community college in which he is
employed. This being the case, the critical issues are simply the appropriateness
of the cross-cultural kickback and whether other relevant cultural norms
override those of Randall's own culture.

Randall's posture that his kickback is an acceptable business practice
in Egypt begs the obvious question of whether it is a cultural requisite
for doing business there. The practice does not, for example, have the
ritual connotation of the "lucky penny" in Irish trade relationships,
or similar rituals elsewhere. Further, it begs even more the important
question of whether one should seize advantage in a cross-cultural situation
merely because there is the sanctioned opportunity there to do so. As
stated, the advantage in this case flows directly from the college as
contractor to the travel agent as seller. While a kickback to secure
business might be acceptable to the seller, there is no reason to assume
in this case that such payment is required by the contractor to avail
of the seller's services. To postulate otherwise is to suggest that
favor is endowed on an Egyptian by taking a kickback from him. Since
this is not the case, Randall's actions are thus forced into the context
of his own culture: by taking the kickback he compromises the ethical
position of his employer, whom he represents in the tour arrangements,
and leaves the impression of personal aggrandizement at the expense
of parties cross-culturally. Put simply, he yielded to a bribe.

The kind of ethical issue defined here should not be rationalized
to protect either the college image or one's self-interest. It goes
to the heart of what the academy is about and, because of that, is an
important variable in assessing qualifications for appointment and promotion.
It is very unfortunate in this case that Crane's decision is not made
easier by what appears to be the tacit collusion of several parties,
for whatever reasons, to ignore the issue.

Reader's Response

"In the case of the Egyptian travel agent, Crane's ethical dilemma
is not what he should say about Randall. He has no documentation of
the man's activities and would be foolish to level such a serious charge
as bribery without it.

"Crane's problem is that the ethical standards of the college in general
seem to be lower than he is comfortable with. He can try to live with
this; he can try to raise the tone of the place (a difficult task which
will win him no friends and may jeopardize his career); or he can leave.
This college sounds like a fairly corrupt place.

"First, Crane is reasonably certain that one of his colleagues is
working with a travel agent for tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks;
second, the provost of the college takes the easy way out by changing
agencies and then tells Crane some of the damning details in what is
either a monumental indiscretion or a shrewd attempt to put Crane into
an ethical dilemma and evaluate the way he resolves it (note that Crane
wouldn't necessarily have known about the kickbacks if the provost hadn't
told him); third, Randall's wife tells him in effect that her husband
has done nothing wrong, nobody Crane talks to seems to think there is
anything to get upset about, and Crane's chair tells him to shut up
and forget the whole thing, for the good of the college (and, by extension,
of Crane's career).

"Unless he has the stamina and guts of a crusader, he should start
looking for another job, but even then he may feel that he has yielded
to expediency and compromised his standards. Poor Crane! `Where ignorance
is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.' "

"Note: This famous quotation is from Thomas Gray's poem, `On a Distant
Prospect of Eton College,' the whole of which has interesting resonances
with this case, in that it is basically an elegy on the loss of innocence."